On Lack of Grace in Small Crowded Areas
by Yllen
Summary: AU. In an institution, Ana and Shannon can't forget what it was like to be dead. Dark comedy, angst and dare I say romance.


**On Lack of Grace and Nail Polish in Small Crowded Areas**

Ana Lucia remembers being dead perfectly well. The cold, the darkness and the silence, all the usual, predictable stuff. She never mentions it when doctor Burke or one of those curious-looking men in white coats ask her about the crash. She rarely even lets herself think about it, except at night when she wakes up suddenly and feels like a character from a pulp horror novel.

It's on one of those instances that she leaves her room in the institution and goes to the bathroom for a middle-of-the-night shower. She can't shake the impression that there is sand in her hair from when she was buried.

The shampoo, not unlike a number of other things, is quite dreadful here. She notices, but doesn't really care.

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Shannon feels quite unlike herself in the modest nightdress they gave her. She tells Boone it makes her legs look shorter, and he protests, but she knows that he's hardly objective. Not that she wants him to be.

What she doesn't know about Boone is how he does it. How he sleeps through the nights, his face unmarred by a frown, his lips by a grimace. She? She fears the mirrors, what they would tell her about herself now. She dreams of worms and rain and hot bullets. Surely, this must show in her step? She dreams of being stiff and unfeeling and cold. She dreads seeing grey in her own irises.

Being in the room with this new, indifferent Boone is difficult on far too many levels, and she knows it while he does his best to remain blissfully ignorant, and this is what drives her out of bed and into the bathroom, where one is relatively safe, as long as she's careful what she's looking at.

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If nothing else, the water is warm and Ana is loathe to step out of shower. When she finally does, it is precisely in the same moment when Shannon Rutherford enters the bathroom, shivering.

"Hi," Shannon says, in a manner suggesting that it's more because she's surprised than because she is polite.

"Hi yourself," Ana answers, thinking how unnatural the tall girl looks, cowering as she is, barefoot on the cold tiles; ashen face and pale legs somehow disagree with the image Ana has of her.

Shannon nods, the big towel she has in her hand brushes the floor, and Ana turns around and leaves.

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Shannon could find pleasure in the breakfasts here. There's actually warm toast and coffee made just the way she likes it, or used to like it, she's not sure. There should be comfort in this kind of details, just as there is in Boone's unwavering attention. Shannon could learn to enjoy all this, she tells herself, if it weren't for the fact that breakfast is served in the common dining room, where she can't help but see all the others. The thin girl she remembers pregnant, and whose baby is never around, if there even ever was one. Sawyer, whom she remembers making fun of her legs and strutting around as if he owned the place (the Island, she whispers to herself, the Island). The Black guy sitting all alone, who is even more silent than her, and who has no son or dog, even though she remembers both Walt and Vincent quite clearly. Ana, the woman who shot her, and Sayid, the man who she thinks thought he loved her, and whom she feels like seeing even less than the doctors.

"Hello, Shannon," he says to her, standing up when she walks into the room. She knows she's a bitch for keeping her face expressionless as she answers his greeting, but there's only so much she can do and still believe that it indeed isn't insanity that she's falling into.

Boone pretends he doesn't even see Sayid, and Shannon wishes she could share his self-righteousness. It would make life that much easier, wouldn't it?

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Shannon is a dislikeable friendless egoist, and she looks utterly miserable, picking at food at her plate with even less enthusiasm than you'd expect from an obsessed anorexic like her.

"What's up with her?" Charlie asks Ana, like she's supposed to know. Like she's going to talk to him, really. Like she doesn't know what everyone knows, that he broke, that he told the doctors what they wanted to hear, that they're going to let him out.

"She probably doesn't enjoy her company," Ana answers, the hint heavy enough for the rock star to get it the first time. He leaves to sit with Hurley. Good riddance of bad rubbish, obviously.

Ana downs her orange juice in a single swallow and heads out before the clock strikes eight. For some inexplicable reason she feels like she's escaping.

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Shannon is tired a lot these days. Especially ever since they let Charlie out, and the atmosphere turned even sourer; the not-pregnant chick hanging around the bald guy (she knows the names, but it gets Boone riled up when she doesn't use them) and the two of them engaged in some sort of a conspiracy she rather senses than knows of.

The wonder threesome seems worked up about being left out and they're taking it out on anyone around. Sayid has the good grace to finally leave her alone; he's taken to sitting morbidly with Ana. A match made in heaven, really. They're welcome to stare at one another silently for all eternity for all she cares.

Most of the time Shannon just sits in her room, or in Boone's room, depending on her mood, staring at the ceiling. She thinks she's depressed. Maybe it's PTSD. PTSD sounds kind of cool for a reason to be depressed.

Shannon is bored sometimes. She thinks up ways to annoy her brother (like using that word in relation to him). She thinks up ways to make it up to him later. She thinks up fancy lies to feed the doctors (like the one about not realizing her own father is dead, has been for a while – had them running in circles for a couple of weeks; they and their obsession with fathers).

Shannon wishes she had some nail polish. She would really like to paint her toenails, perhaps blue, like the sky, like the sea, like the eyes of her first boyfriend, whose name she can't recall anymore.

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Ana finds herself missing Charlie. He was such a pathetic loser, with his nails painted with ink and dreams of grandeur broadcast at random; it was comforting to have him around, a dog to kick, a low to compare your own to.

He was amusing and amusement is one thing she lacks. Another is obviously sex. She's taken to waking up in the middle of half-remembered explicit dreams, sudden return to being teenage and horny. Probably all part of the experiment, she tells herself.

It's another supper at common room, and only a few people are present. Sayid is sitting with her, surprisingly talkative tonight, he's telling her a story she's finding difficult to focus on, her eyes straying, her mind wandering.

If he notices, he's kind enough not to say so.

She drinks her tea unsweetened and watches Sawyer (she remembers his hips, the memory part humiliation, part arousal) add four lumps of sugar to his. As she turns her gaze away her eyes meet Shannon's, who must have been watching the very same thing and the younger girl smiles briefly, her slender hand flying to her lips with practiced grace.

Ana almost chuckles back, but catches herself in time.

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The sun is giving Shannon a headache. She tells Boone to leave her alone; his fussing irritates her. She's on the brink of saying something she'd regret later, she just knows it.

She goes to the library to seek shade and peace. The room is somewhat cooler than the rest of the building; she sighs in relief almost the moment she crosses the threshold. Shade she finds, peace is still in demand, as there is Ana sitting in the room, a caged look in her eyes. Shannon thinks that restlessness must be driving Ana mad. They are both stuck here, but Shannon is far better at boredom, in fulfilling a purely ornamental function. She's done it to support herself in the past.

She doesn't know why she even cares to ponder. Pondering is a thing other people do. Pondering will give you wrinkles.

"Ran out of topics to be silent about with Sayid?" she asks, because she has to say something mean, it's almost a physiological need.

Ana ignores her pointedly, which serves only to annoy Shannon further. She opens her mouth and closes it, then rolls her eyes in a failed attempt to be disdainful. She must be out of practice, as Ana does not respond at all; she just opens a random book and pretends to be fascinated by its content.

Shannon sits down in a blue armchair and uses an old magazine to fan herself, paying special attention to letting the pages flutter loudly. It's Ana's turn to scowl. Shannon smirks.

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Today's futile attempt at rebellion is skipping group therapy, Ana decides. There's little else to rile her up more than the touchy-feely oh-I'm-so-traumatised mood the doctors try to force her into. She's seen people experiencing shock and she's not one of them. She's sane, she's normal, she just _died_ and it proved to be an illusion, someone is fucking with her mind and she's completely powerless and enslaved by a bloody cult of brain-damaged pseudo-doctors and there's absolutely nothing to be worried or angry about. That and she needs to get laid or she'll go crazy from all the hormones that are having a party in her body like it's menopause come early. (Is it menopause come early? Impossible, right?)

She encounters Sayid skulking in an empty dining room, barren of anything that could be used to harm oneself or others. Like a prison or a mental institution, and this is after all a combination of the two, despite the fancy name and hand-holding.

She takes one look at the man whose girlfriend she's kind of killed, except for her being alive and smirking, and weighs her options. On one hand, Sayid is a gentleman, on the other, he's a gentleman.

So for all his romantic notions, he is hardly going to say no to her, now is he?

She tests her hypothesis in the second act of rebellion of the day.

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"Ana Lucia slept with Sayid, you know."

Shannon doesn't know, and frankly doesn't consider this knowledge essential, but there's some pleasure in having someone young and female to talk to (to impress) once in a while, so she keeps up the conversation.

"How do you know?"

"This is a small place, tough to keep a secret," Claire says, with nonchalance or whatever it is that she tries to pass for nonchalance.

Ah, the inevitable jab. This is the moment when the girl sleeping with a grandpa points finger at the incestuous girl sleeping with an incestuous brother-who-isn't-brother. How unexpected. Shannon doesn't really feel like discussing her personal life at the moment though, so she just changes the subject. With a bit more grace, something Claire could learn from her, if she wants to be mean in a manner at least remotely _resembling_ professional.

"Is it true then, that both Sawyer and Jack are sometimes seen leaving Kate's room in the morning?"

Claire giggles, and for a second Shannon actually likes her. As much as she can like anyone here.

"In a space of ten minutes. One leaves, then the other. At first I couldn't believe it, all three of them, together-"

"What? Thank you for a mental image I'll never be able to get rid of. Really."

Claire laughs, but her laughter is just a little bit empty, and the moment of liking continues, and Shannon wishes she had something to say to make it all better for Claire, but she doesn't think anyone knows what that might be. Except maybe those who took her baby. If there ever was one.

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There is uncomfortable, there is awkward, and there is being left all alone with the girl whom you killed, and whose boyfriend you are sleeping with (Ana is never sure if she is or was – every time she tells herself it's the last because it is a bit like hurting a very dangerous puppy, and one day it will be the last time, and she'll have to tell him, and she doesn't look forward to that).

"So, you and Sayid?" Shannon says, clearly enjoying herself, that skinny bitch.

"You didn't seem to be laying claim."

Shannon looks pensive for a moment, and Ana has this cop feeling that she's going to hear a truth for a change, so she listens carefully.

"Well, you know," Shannon starts, looking at the window, like there's anything to look at on the other side, her voice a bit mechanical, as if she'd rehearsed what she has to say. "Sayid… He just can't understand because he didn't die."

Ana thinks that it's a lot of consonants to let out on a single breath.

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Shannon doesn't know why she goes around spilling her guts to strange murderers, she's just grateful she failed to mention the tiny insignificant detail that Boone seems to have forgotten all about being dead anyway. Boone seems to be forgetting a great deal of things, like that they are imprisoned, or that he's supposed to be on her side and not whispering with Locke again (there's a limited number of times she can throw the "he'll get you killed again!" card at him before he will think she cares).

It's just that sometimes even she gets lonely, and wish she had company she could enjoy, someone made of flesh and blood, someone who isn't their own shadow, like most people here seem. Except for doctors, but they are holding a creepiness contest.

Boone sleeps like a baby and she is tortured by nightmares, and his warm feet are no longer reason enough for anything. She feels cheated. He was supposed to be different. Meaningful. Not just another prick, like they all, in the end.

"And I can't stand this soap, it stinks."

Over the next couple of weeks Ana is surprised to find herself the object of Shannon's occasional rant on that topic or other. It proves useful, because Ana's on a quest to avoid Sayid, and Shannon's company is just the thing. That, and it's a relief to have someone to snap at without remorse. Shannon can be cruel in her words and thoughtless in her remarks; Ana strikes back mercilessly, and it's almost like doing something.

It's refreshing, being around someone who doesn't honestly expect you to like them, nor to listen to them.

Most of Shannon's complaining is meaningless anyway; just talking for talking's sake, something Ana used to have tough time standing, but now doesn't really mind. She understands the drive. And in between the drivel at times there's something that's actually of interest to Ana; a piece of gossip picked up flirting with nurses (Shannon does that sometimes, especially when Boone is sure to notice), an item of news about anything. They're stuck here without a single source of outside information. For all they know, the world has been wiped out in an atomic blast and their destiny is to repopulate the Earth.

Shannon has the two of them sit in the sun and try to get some tan.

Ana is torn, uncertain which one is worse, facing Sayid's disappointment or getting skin cancer together with Miss Oh-I'm-Too-Pale. Strangely, the process of gaining skin cancer while watching Shannon wriggle in her seat, trying to catch as much sun as possible, seems more entertaining.

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Shannon doesn't know or want to ask Ana what she gave Sawyer to get the bottle of alcohol from him. Nor does she want to learn how he came into possession of that on Institution grounds. She just accepts the fact that Ana has liquor and that she's willing to share. Gift horse and all that.

"Most people who offer me drinks do that so they can sleep with me, you know," she says after her second. (She's always been fairly economical, drinking-wise, and she's out of practice).

"That sounded altogether far too much like flirting to my liking."

"Yeah well, that's 'cause getting me drunk always works with me," Shannon replies grinning, like she's boasting of a virtue.

"How unsurprising." Ana is downing another one, and Shannon feels the next topic of their conversation is going to be how men are all utterly worthless. She's looking forward to that. She's got a good deal of things to say about Boone that it's only alright to say when she's drunk.

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Ana finds herself paying attention to Shannon's hands. They're slender and pale, despite all the tedious sunbathing, and the nails are cut short. She thinks maybe Shannon has to stop herself from biting them, closed in here, surrounded by the same people, and such people at that. She herself is climbing the walls, literally.

Shannon could use fattening up, Ana decides. It's unhealthy, the way she's skipping meals and drinking coffee by the litre, she'd probably smoke as well, given half a chance (except maybe she'd consider the effect cigarettes would have on her skin; Shannon thinks about skin far more often than an average person).

Shannon goes on and on about how Boone is insensitive and how he criticised her for spending time with Ana who didn't even go to her funeral, which is an absurd accusation if she's ever heard one, and suddenly another thing Shannon could use is being silenced up, and because Shannon was actually right about people's motivation in getting her drunk, quite matter-of-factly, even if to her own surprise, Ana kisses Shannon on the mouth and finds out that the bit about Shannon's per cent-related promiscuity was indubitably true.

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Shannon only gets to shave her legs when Boone is kind enough to forgo tending to his laughable beard, which isn't often enough, prissy as he is, so her legs are rough to the touch from the stubs of hair growing on them. If Ana minds, she never tells so; contrarily, she spends a lot of time on them, each time they fuck, make love or do whatever it is they do. Shannon is careful not to name it to herself; naming would have to be followed by decisions.

They argue a lot, and have sex afterwards. Shannon stops sleeping at her brother's but doesn't talk to him about it, or move her things out of his room. That would imply she'd made up her mind. Ana frowns and says there's not much of a mind to speak of.

Ana gives Shannon blue nail polish for her birthday. She never confesses how she got it, and Shannon doesn't ask.

One night, as Ana's hand is slowly creeping up Shannon's leg, Shannon says, casually (and this casually is a close relative of casualty, graceless and ugly):

"I remember you killing me."

Rain is beating against the window, the moon is hidden behind dark clouds, and Ana answers, with what might be, and might not be a lie, that she wishes she didn't remember killing Shannon.


End file.
